


Twelve Days of Winter Star

by Pixiigh



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Decorating, Elf, Family Fluff, Holiday movies are the best movies, Holiday prompts, I'm so glad for Wikipedia wow, Jingle Bell Rock, Mistletoe, Multi, Non-binary character, Pierre being cheap af, SALESSSSS, Sam is very annoying, Sign Language, Snow Storms, Super cheesy proposals, Sweet Sewer Monster, The Grinch - Freeform, Winter Star, first holiday, holiday baking, so cute I die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21649408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixiigh/pseuds/Pixiigh
Summary: Going off some prompts I found on Tumblr related to Christmas! Or, as they call it in Stardew Valley, Winter Star :) I will update the tags and the list below as I go.Day 1 - Holiday Decorating - Shane/Female Player (and Jas!)Day 2 - Mistletoe - Maru/Female PlayerDay 3 - Holiday Movie - Haley/Male PlayerDay 4 - Holiday Music - Sam/Female PlayerDay 5 - First Holiday - Harvey/Male PlayerDay 6 - Holiday Baking - Penny/NB CharacterDay 7 - Krobus & Female PlayerDay 8 - Holiday Shopping - Abigail/Male Player
Relationships: Abigail/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Haley/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Harvey/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Krobus & Player (Stardew Valley), Maru/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Penny/Player (Stardew Valley), Sam/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Shane/Female Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 133





	1. Holiday Decorating

Ella laughed as a large plastic ornament fell off the tree and onto Shane’s face.

She had been watching him and Jas decorate the giant tree that took up most of the living room of the farm house when Shane scooped up the little girl to decorate the top layer of the tree. Unfortunately for him, Jas had small arms and tried to reach up too far, causing the ornament to just miss the branch and smack down on his nose. She was shocked for a moment, but soon joined Ella in laughter.

“Hilarious,” Shane grumbled, setting Jas down and retrieving the shiny red ball. “Wait till it happens to you.”

“It’s not going to happen to me,” Jas retorted. “Or Ella. She’s got noodle arms and can’t lift me, and there’s _no way_ I can lift her!”

“Hey!” Ella protested. “I do not have noodle arms, take that back, missy.”

Jas stuck her tongue out at the farmer. “I saw you this morning, you can’t even lift a _chicken!_ ”

“Oh yeah?” Quickly, she picked Jas up and playfully threw her onto the couch and began to tickle her. Jas shrieked loudly, trying to fend off the farmer through giggles. “Who’s got noodle arms now?”

Shane let them tire themselves out. “You guys done?”

Ella and Jas looked at each other, both breathing hard, giggles slipping out of their mouths every few breaths. They nodded.

“Good. We still have a lot of decorations to put up.”

Ella and Jas rose from the couch and got back to work. Ella would often stop what she was doing just to watch Shane and Jas decorate.

She smiled, feeling warm inside as she watched them put snowflake stickers up on the window facing her fields. Shane would dramatically lick the back of a sticker before slapping it on the window, and Jas would giggle at him, a sticker long forgotten on her own tongue. She hadn’t been dating Shane for very long, but she still felt like a family when he and his goddaughter were around.

They made quick work of the rest of the decorations, and the indoor window lights, despite the enormous amount of them, and were soon bundling up to go outside to hang the lights.

“What colour did ya get?” Jas asked, practically vibrating in her boots while she waited for the adults to finish getting ready.

“Pink, of course,” Ella answered as she pulled on her gloves. “Your favourite.”

Jas clapped excitedly while Shane rolled his eyes.

“Pink isn’t a good holiday colour,” he said under his breath. He knew it was a battle he would surely lose. Ella stuck her tongue out, and Jas quickly copied her.

They ventured outside to the snow-covered porch where a few boxes of lights sat upon the chairs overlooking the farm. Jas grabbed one and ripped into it, unravelling the long strings and throwing them behind her like confetti.

“Careful, kid,” Shane warned and grabbed the string of lights slung over Jas’s shoulder. “Don’t want to break Ella’s nice lights.”

“They’re plastic, Shane,” Jas retorted, exasperatedly. Ella watched the two with a grin.

“Yeah, Shane.”

Jas and Ella delighted in making fun of Shane as he climbed up on the ladder and began to hang the lights. He took it all in stride, to Ella’s delight.

Once he was finished, Jas flicked the switch hidden under the outlet door that the lights plugged into. She squealed at the sight of Ella’s house lit up with pink lights.

“It looks like a gingerbread house!” she said, her cheeks flushed and eyes wide in wonder. “Aunt Marine’s house never looks this good!”

Shane slung an arm casually around Ella’s shoulders as they watched the little girl run around the yard to look at the house at all sorts of different angles. She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Our first holiday together,” she mused dreamily. He squeezed her tighter.

“Turning out better than I thought,” he said. “Jas had a lot more fun than I thought she would. When we decorated Marnie’s last year, you’d think it was the biggest hardship she’d ever run into. Sulked the whole time.”

She laughed gently. “You seemed to have a good time today, too.”

She looked up at him, and her heart fluttered at the sight of his grin. It looked so natural on his face now, came so easily.

“I did,” he said. He kissed the top of Ella’s head. “I love spending time with my girls.”

Jas raced over to them, puffing from the exercise and the cold. Her request came out loudly and excitedly.

“Can we decorate the chicken coop next?”


	2. Mistletoe

“Did you know that mistletoe is actually a parasitic plant?”

Maru had stopped by to see the farmer, but was stopped in her tracks before she could make it into the farmhouse to see her best friend. She would recognize the clumpy plant anywhere. Demetrius wouldn’t shut up about mistletoe this time of year.

Rachel wandered out of the house when she saw Maru trying to climb the tree to get a better look. She had been concerned because the tree didn’t look like it would hold the weight, but it was doing fine. She chuckled as Maru examined the branch.

“I didn’t even know it was mistletoe,” she said. “I thought it was just, like, moss or something.”

Maru harrumphed. “I thought that as a farmer, you might know your plants a little better.”

“Kid, I plant pumpkins and parsnips, not parasitic plants.”

Rachel watched Maru muse over the plant some more with a smile. Maru and her family were by far her favourite people in the Valley. Even surly Sebastian, Maru’s half-brother. Rachel had always felt welcome in the house atop the mountain.

It hadn’t, however, taken Rachel long to fall for the tiny young woman with the gleam in her eye and robots in her basement. She had never found the right opportunity to tell her, despite the connection she knew Maru felt too, but this one seemed to present itself to her as an early Winter Star gift.

“Tell me more about mistletoe,” she said, knowing Maru would have a ton of facts in her back pocket.

“Well,” Maru started, taking the bait as she leaned against a particularly thick branch and let her legs dangle down. “There are several different species of mistletoe. This particular one is called _‘Viscum Album’_ , sometimes just called mistle. It can grow on somewhere around two hundred different tree and shrub species, and it can be toxic if you eat it. Although, I don’t know how they found that one out. A lot of plant species were determined in the ancient world to be safe or unsafe by the way they smell, and mistletoe doesn’t have a scent. A lot of the unscented plants were just left alone, but… someone ate mistletoe.”

Rachel giggled as Maru continued on, peppering the farmer with facts as though it took no brain power at all. It probably didn’t, having Demetrius as a father. When Maru paused to take a breath, Rachel interrupted.

“So, why do people kiss under the mistletoe?” she asked, quirking one eyebrow. Maru flushed immediately.

“Oh, uh…” She cleared her throat. “It’s ancient Norse mythology, actually. They said that the son of a goddess was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe. When she cried onto the arrow, her tears turned into white berries that, when she placed them on her sons wound, brought him back to life. They considered it good luck to kiss under a sprig of mistletoe.”

Rachel leaned against the tree, her cheek resting in an open hand. “So it’s good luck then?”

“Supposedly.”

“Well, it just so happens that I’m in need of a little good luck,” Rachel said.

Maru started to climb down from the tree, having exhausted all her mistletoe facts. “What do you need luck for?”

She obviously miscalculated where she was on the tree, because her foot slipped and she started to tumble down. Rachel was faster, though, and allowed Maru to brace herself against her shoulders as she steadied herself.

“I need some good luck when I tell the prettiest girl in the valley that I want to kiss her under the mistletoe.”

Maru looked a little shocked, but her cheeks burned red and she smiled shyly anyway.

“Are you talking about me?”

Rachel guided Maru’s feet to the ground, hands firmly placed on a waist.

“Of course I am,” Rachel replied, and leaned down to kiss the prettiest girl in the valley under the mistletoe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE MARU


	3. Holiday Movie

“The poor Grinch is so misunderstood, you know? He just wants some peace and quiet and all the Who’s down in Whoville just won’t shut up.”

Ben laughed at his girlfriend’s analysis of How the Grinch Stole Winter Star. He and Haley were at the part where the Grinch was trying to find an outfit when Haley crossed her arms and declared the Grinch totally innocent.

“But the Grinch has lived up on top of Whoville for years, he should know that this season is really important to them,” Ben replied, patting Haley’s head. She squirmed out from under his arm and looked at him, in mock surprise.

“Ben, I can’t believe you’d side with the Who’s when you start grumbling when Pierre puts up decorations!”

He scoffed and ruffled her hair. “Pierre’s decorations look like shit, honey, that’s why I get upset.”

She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the movie, making similar commentary the whole time.

“Look, the poor thing doesn’t want to be cheermeister, it’s cruel!”

“He’s right! Presents are so disposable!”

“The Grinch is too good for Martha Mae Whovier. He deserves better.”

Ben can’t help but chuckle each time she said something. Haley was like this with _every_ movie they watched. No matter how unlikeable the antagonistic character was, she’d always find a way to be empathetic about them.

The movie ended, and Haley sighed. “I think the Grinch got a raw deal.”

“How so?” Ben asked.

“He didn’t want to celebrate Winter Star. I don’t care if the narrator says his heart grew three sizes when he celebrated with the Who’s. He was forced into it because his neighbours wouldn’t stop badgering him about it. He only hated Winter Star because they bullied him.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he mused. “How would you rewrite the Grinch?”

She scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I’d let the Grinch live out his life on the mountain with his dog and all the presents the Who’s threw in the garbage on Boxing Day. Maybe give him a friend. A Grinchette, who is just as grumpy as he is.”

“That sounds miserable.”

“They could make their own Winter Star traditions,” she countered. “One that didn’t involve exterior lighting canons or enormous roast beasts.”

He couldn’t help the smile. “You’re very invested in the Grinch’s life.”

“The Grinch reminds me of my dad.” She sighed. “He hated Winter Star. I mean, he never lived on a trash mountain, but still. My mom reminds me of Cindy Lou Who.”

“In that she’s an irritating little girl who tries to force a green monster to like a holiday he clearly wants to hate?”

Haley laughed. “Now you get it! No, in that she believes there’s good in everyone. And that she tries to force a green monster to like a holiday he wants to hate, okay, yes.”

“Hey, what’s your take on Elf?” Ben asked as he found the movie on the streaming site they were using. “Do you think the elves used some type of like, MK Ultra shit on Buddy to make him like Christmas so much?”

Haley cocked her head to the side as the opening title sequence began to play. “I don’t know what MK Ultra is. And I’ve actually never seen Elf.”

He took her by the waist and pulled her closer to him. “Oh, babe, you’re in for a _treat.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was not great. Ouch. I love Christmas movies tho!!!!!!


	4. Holiday Music

“Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell… Ouch!”

Sam’s attempt to play Jingle Bell Rock for the fifteenth time in a row was thwarted when Noura threw her boot at him.

_Play that song one more damn time, Sam, see what happens._

She was signing faster than she usually did, brows knitted together. She had taken her hearing aid out around the eighth time around, but she could still hear it, even if only slightly. He never even really got through the entire song, he was more focused on playing the opening riff over and over… and over and over and over.

_But it’s my favourite Winter Star song,_ he signed back with a pout on his face. She shot him a look.

“I hate it,” she said aloud for emphasis. _Can’t you play something else?_

He sighed, but nodded. She put her hearing aid back in. She loved hearing Sam play.

He began to play something else she vaguely recognized before it became clear he was getting bored. She closed her eyes and laid back on the couch so she could enjoy it without having to look at his puppy dog eyes.

And, in true Sam fashion, he started playing Jingle Bell Rock the second she was really starting to enjoy the other song.

She shot up and screeched his name. “WHY are you like this?”

The shit eating grin he gave her as he continued to play was too much to stay mad, even though she really wanted to. She settled for taking her hearing aid out again and crossing her arms in an effort to appear upset still.

Without the music so loud, she was able to really watch Sam play. He was performing just for her. It felt special, even if it was incredibly annoying. She knew he would never play like this for anyone else, not even a huge audience.

He stuck his tongue out slightly for concentration. She watched his hands. She loved his hands and all their calluses. The moved quickly, expertly.

She was so caught up in her daydreams that she didn’t even notice that he had stopped playing until he was launching himself on top of her, his guitar placed gently back in place. She squealed as his body landed on top of hers.

“This is our first Winter Star together,” he said, then signed it as he realized she wasn’t wearing her hearing aid. She shook her head.

_Second._

He grinned. _First. We didn’t live together last year._

_It still counts_ she signed with a roll of her eyes. _You practically lived here anyway, except when your mom cooked dinner._

_Ooh, I forgot how good the turkey is._ He looked off in the distance, absently, with a dreamy look on his face, and she knew that she had lost him to the thought of Winter Star Feasts.

She reached up and ruffled his hair affectionately and he snuggled into her.

If the trade off for a holiday like this was hearing Jingle Bell Rock fifty million times, she supposed she’d take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I brought back Noura from Hands! A few people really liked her and Sam, and so do I :) 
> 
> Side note, Jingle Bell Rock is a great song but it gets annoying SO FAST.


	5. First Holiday

“…And you’d better leave your shoes out on Star’s Eve, so Krampus knows you’ve been good this year. Otherwise… he’s going to come get you….”

Jesse trailed off, wagging his fingers for emphasis in front of Jas and Vincent’s terrified faces. They had followed him through the town square as he headed for the clinic, begging for a story. Penny did not seem pleased at his choices.

The clinic door opened and closed and there stood Harvey, hands on his hips, moustache lifted slightly to hide a smile.

“I thought Spirit’s Eve was over, dear,” he said to Jesse, trying his best to sound disapproving. “You’re scaring the poor children.”

Jesse grinned back at his boyfriend. “How better to get in the holiday spirit? Besides, they know Krampus isn’t real, right guys?”

Vincent tried to put on a brave face in front of Jas, but he didn’t look entirely convinced. “Of course we know,” he said. “We know only Santa is real! And Santa likes cookies!”

Jesse ruffled the child’s hair before Penny shooed them away from the farmer and his tall tales. She shot him a scandalized look before turning around and leading the kids to the museum to their makeshift classroom.

“You’re not doing great at winning everyone over with stories like that,” Harvey said, but his tone was fond and he bent slightly to kiss Jesse’s cheek softly. “Scaring their children isn’t very endearing.”

“Looks like it is to you,” Jesse teased. Harvey chuckled and rested his arm around the other man’s shoulder.

“I suppose sometimes it can be,” he agreed. They began to make their way towards Jesse’s farm, as Harvey was done for the day.

Their relationship was still new, but Harvey had expressed nothing but excitement at spending the holiday on the farm. Jesse had planned an elaborate feast for the two of them to enjoy the day after the town feast. Thinking about it made him warm inside.

Now back at the farm, a fire was lit and the two were curled up on the couch together as the sun set outside and it started to snow.

“I’m very lucky to be spending this time with you,” Harvey said softly as he smoothed down Jesse’s blond hair. “I’m so used to spending the holidays alone, just waiting for some kind of medical emergency, or having to endure people in town taking pity on me for being alone.”

Jesse chuckled. “That one has Jodi written all over it.”

“Oh, who else? My first year here, she showed up with a fish casserole the day after Winter Star. It was very nice of her, but it’s much nicer to be here with you.”

Jesse snuggled in closer. “Me too. Last year was so lonely. And now you’re here.”

And, really, that was all he could ever ask for for Winter Star.

Jesse could spend a million holidays with Harvey, but he would always remember this one.


	6. Holiday Baking

“Okay. Try these cookies.”

Cameron eyed the plate of cookies being offered by Penny with apprehension. They had put up a front to their girlfriend that her cooking was delicious, but plate after plate of Winter Star baking was appearing in front of them and they were losing their ability to fake it.

“Oh, honey, I’m… stuffed,” they said, patting their stomach for emphasis. “Couldn’t eat any more. Maybe save them for later.”

 _Save them for the garbage is more like it._ Not that they would ever tell Penny that.

Penny pouted. “Come on, Cam, just one? I just want to know if I can bring them to the feast tomorrow or if I should try a different recipe.”

 _No one can ever tell me I don’t do anything nice._ Cam gingerly took a cookie and took a miniscule bite. It tasted like sand and had the texture of a rock.

“This is great,” they lied with a smile. They made a metal note to sneak the plate of cookies to the dwarf in the mines, the only one in the valley who genuinely enjoyed Penny’s culinary pursuits. Cam could never bring themselves to tell the truth.

Penny beamed. “I’m so glad you like them. I used cinnamon, since I know how much you like it.”

Cam looked over to their shaker of cinnamon. It had been half full before Penny came over to start baking. It was almost empty now. They winced a little.

“Hey, Pen, why don’t we try something together?” Deciding to try a new approach, Cam pulled their Grandpa’s recipe book from a cabinet. Perhaps if they followed a tried and true recipe, maybe the end result would be edible.

Thankfully, Penny took the suggestion well. She blushed. “I’d love to.”

So, they began the simple recipe for a clementine cake. Penny was content to peel the tiny oranges and let Cam teach her how to puree them properly. She mixed the ingredients with gusto and only protested slightly when Cam told her to be a little gentler with their bakeware.

With the cake in the oven, Penny had taken to perusing the recipe book. She looked up at Cam, her expression slightly crestfallen.

“Your grandpa used to make all these?” she asked. Cam nodded.

“He was quite the baker in his day, before his arthritis really started to get to him. He was stubborn about that, though. Broke quite a few dishes before he decided to give it up and admit that Gus was the new best.”

“Did you ever help him with them?”

Cam smiled, beginning to get lost in memories. “Sometimes, yeah. When I was little I wanted to own my own bakery.”

“I’m picturing you in a little chef hat right now.” Penny giggled. “Why did you decide not to? Why don’t you open one here?”

“The farm comes first,” Cam replied with a shrug. “I mean, a lot of it is automated now, but I still worry about it sometimes.”

“You could always get someone to help with both. Like, well, me.”

Cam raised an eyebrow. Penny was about as good at farm work as she was at baking, but she was still new to the whole farming lifestyle, only having lived with Cam for a few months. She tired, and Cam knew that.

“Maybe next year.” Cam placed a kiss to the top of Penny’s red hair just as the timer to the oven went off. They donned a pair of oven mitts and pulled a perfectly golden-brown cake from the oven. It smelled like nothing they had ever smelled before, and they wanted nothing more than to devour the cake whole right then and there.

Penny peeked over their shoulder as the cake was set on the counter to cool. She clapped her hands.

“It looks so good!” she said excitedly. “I can’t wait to try it!”

Cam grinned down and kissed her once more. “And we made it together.”

Perhaps they would be able to contribute something edible to the Winter Star Feast this year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ilu Penny <3


	7. Snow Storm

Olivia had never seen it snow so much, not even in the valley where snow was a permanent fixture the day winter started.

She worried about her farm animals. She was unable to get out the door due to the enormous snow drift that covered it, and she paced back and forth fretting about the integrity of the barns and the automatic feeders inside.

“What if they run out of food?” she said to her cat, Slinky, as she made her fifteenth lap around her house. “What if they start eating each other in desperation because I can’t get out?”

Then a though occurred to her.

“What if I run out of food?”

Slinky’s eyes got wide, as if afraid her ideas of animal cannibalism would spread to him. She softened and petted his head.

“I would never eat you, Slink. Besides, you’re skin and bones as it is. I’d never get enough nutrition from you.”

Slinky was not satisfied with her answer and leaped off the back of the couch to go hide somewhere.

She paced a bit more until her legs started to get tired. It was hard to pace when 90% of her house was occupied by some bit of furniture. She sat down to try to catch her breath and relax.

It was working, sort of, until she heard a sound coming from her kitchen sink.

She walked wearily over to it, having no idea what to expect. She had absolutely zero knowledge of plumbing, and her worst fear in that moment was the pipe exploding and spewing raw sewage all over her house.

She _really_ hoped it wouldn’t do that.

The tap gurgled and moved around in front of her, and she could hardly believe her eyes. It was almost cartoonish. It shook and shook, then suddenly, it stopped. Her squinted a bit and tried to look up inside it, when something black started to ooze out of it.

She recoiled in disgust. “Stop, sink! What are you doing?”

She had no idea how to combat whatever was emerging from the pipes. It looked too solid to be sewage, but she racked her brain for other things that might come out of the sewer when she realized it.

“You could have come in somewhere other than my kitchen sink, you know.”

She watched as Krobus, the sewer monster, unfolded himself from her sink and wiggled down onto the ground.

“I wasn’t about to go out in the snow,” he replied, brushing himself off by bending himself in half. “It’s not like I can trust other humans, either. It’s very cold down there today, and it’s starting to flood from the snow.”

Olivia and Krobus had become fast friends while she completed a task for the Wizard. She visited him often in the sewer, but this was the first time he had ever made an appearance in her home. He looked very out of place.

He looked around with interest. “Human homes are much more… comfortable than I was expecting.”

He walked over to the fireplace, where the remains of a dying fire resided. He poked one foot into the space above the logs and looked surprised at the warmth. Slinky had come out and was regarding their guest with interest. Krobus returned that interest, and the cat allowed the monster to once again bend in half to pet him. Slinky didn’t seem to mind that it was a forehead stroking his fur instead of hands.

Krobus straightened up as the cat stalked away. “Can I stay here? Just until the storm is over, anyway. I don’t want to intrude, it’s just so cold out.”

Olivia regarded him with a warm expression. “You can stay here as long as you need, my friend.”

She taught him to use human inventions during the course of the storm. They remained snowed in for days, but Krobus didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he even embraced the human tradition of a Winter Star Feast even after the snow had ebbed away and became slush.

She taught him about “gifts” which had, until that point, been an entirely foreign concept to him. His gift to her was a black speckled void egg, one of his most prized possessions.

Her gift to him was a room in her home, styled just the way he liked it.

Krobus had never even imagined a holiday before, but his favourite human made his first one magical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH I LOVE THAT KROBUS CAN BE YOUR ROOMMATE NOW! I love him.


	8. Holiday Shopping

Abigail was sandwiched between her mother and a large box in the back seat of her father’s pickup truck while her boyfriend chatted away in the front. She was cranky, to say the least. Despite describing himself as a one stop shop for all things Winter Star, Pierre had practically counted down the seconds until they were able to leave Pelican Town to head to Zuzu City for After Day sales.

Abby never really understood the After Day sales, or even the point of After Day. As a child, it was a day off school, but that was really all it meant. Her father had always drooled over the thought of saving a few cents, though. Her mother and Jack were just along for the ride.

The drive was long, but they finally made it to Zuzu City just after the sun had risen. Pierre was practically vibrating with excitement as he scurried off to a big box store. Caroline followed him, much slower, after rolling her eyes at him for Abby and Jack to see.

Now that her parents were gone, Jack slung his arm around the smaller figure. Her cheeks still burned at his touch, even after a year.

“Does he do this every year?” he asked. She chuckled.

“Without fail. I had the flu once. Still had to come. I just sat in the car and wasted away.”

He ruffled her hair affectionately and they began to walk towards the mall in the opposite direction of Abby’s parents. She really didn’t like the mall, but felt like she could tolerate it with Jack instead of her father suppressing a heart attack each time he saw a sale sign.

“Did you know that they just mark all the prices up before Winter Star to make it look like things are really cheap for After Day?” They had entered the mall now, and were blasted in the face with air conditioning as cold as the outside chill. Jack’s pace was leisurely as he peered in the windows of shops without going in. “It’s a pretty common sales tactic. Used to do it all the time when I worked for Joja.”

“Yeah. My dad sometimes tries to do it, but my mom always catches him.” Abby smiled. “She keeps him honest.”

They passed a jeweler, and Abby caught Jack looking back a few seconds longer than he had for any other store. She found it odd, as Jack didn’t really wear jewelry, but thought nothing of it a moment later.

They passed a few more stores, never going in. The mall was full of other shoppers, making Abby feel a little out of place by not having bags in her hands. Jack didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular and just grabbed Abby’s hand every so often and went down a different hall or up an escalator.

She was about to ask him if there was somewhere specific he wanted to go when they stopped outside a bespoke jewelry store, the windows adorned with bits and bobs that enthralled Abby. He looked at her for a moment before pulling her inside.

Curiously, the woman behind the counter seemed to be expecting Jack, as her face lit up when she saw him and she sent an enormous grin his way. Abby suspected that he had been here before.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the woman pulled out an iridium coloured box. Abby’s eyes followed as the lights danced off the colours before her. She couldn’t even think of what was inside due to how mesmerizing the box itself was.

She snapped out of it when Jack closed his hand over the box and shook hands with the woman. Abby wanted to stay and look around, but Jack was determined to leave.

“They still have the Winter Star display open,” he explained as they headed toward the centre court of the mall. “You probably haven’t seen it since they updated it.”

She remembered how rinky dink it looked like as a kid and made a mental note to keep her expectations low. Jack was notoriously easy to please. It probably hadn’t changed as much as he seemed to think.

She was, however, very surprised to find that the display was huge, a cavernous maze filled with fairy lights and sparkling fake snow. Her mouth opened slightly in wonder as he pulled her inside.

They arrived in the middle of the maze a few minutes after entering. High walls surrounded them, covered in glitter, as quiet fans blew warm air around them. It looked like an idyllic winter wonderland.

She had been too buys looking around at the lights to notice Jack bending down behind her. She was momentarily confused by the absence of his yellow hair in front of her before she realized, with a gasp, that he was down on one knee. She clapped her hands to her mouth as she realized what was happening. He chuckled.

“I would have thought you’d catch on in the store,” he told her with a grin. He snapped open the iridium box to reveal a sparkling blue shell on a string, a Pelican Town tradition. She couldn’t fight the smile that grew behind her hand, nor could she fight back the single tear that came from her eye.

He didn’t even have time to ask before she tackled him all the way to the ground, laughing.

She wondered why she ever hated the mall in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know wtf to call Boxing Day when Winter Star has a different name so I decided on the SUPER ORIGINAL After Day. 
> 
> I apologize for taking so long to update! Had a very busy holiday season and also left my laptop charger at work so my laptop died before I could finish working on these.

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find the prompts here](https://kimlovesgrahamscott.tumblr.com/post/167925504203/the-12-days-of-fic-mas-challenge)  
> 


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